Football helped NBC to another ratings touchdown last week

By FRAZIER MOORENovember 21, 2017

NEW YORK (AP) — As Thanksgiving approaches, NBC can be thankful for another weekly ratings win, its second in a row.

As with last week, NBC won largely on the strength of two football games. Sunday night’s clash between Philadelphia and Dallas was the week’s most-watched program, while Thursday’s face-off between Tennessee and Pittsburgh ranked third, Nielsen said. Sunday’s game was the fourth “Sunday Night Football” so far in this young season to top 20 million viewers.

Three editions of “The Voice” helped NBC as well, ranking 12th, 15th and 22nd, as well as the network’s powerhouse drama “This Is Us,” ranking 11th.

CBS’ freshman comedy “Young Sheldon” (ranked sixth) and ABC’s new medical drama “The Good Doctor” (10th) held their status as the cream of the fall crop.

ABC’s “American Music Awards” drew 9.15 million viewers to rank 18th.

The week’s only premiere was the season kickoff of CBS’ sitcom “Man with a Plan,” which placed 41st with 5.38 million viewers.

Overall, NBC averaged 8.79 million viewers in prime time. CBS had 7.83 million, ABC had 5.55 million, Fox had 2.72 million, Univision had 1.68 million, the CW had 1.33 million, Telemundo had 1.21 million and ION Television had 1.19 million.

ESPN was the week’s most popular cable network, averaging 2.68 million viewers in prime time (and scoring cable’s top show, the NFL duel between the Dolphins and the Panthers, seen by 8.81 million viewers). Fox News Channel had 2.27 million and Hallmark had 2.23 million.

ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox is owned by 21st Century Fox. NBC and Telemundo are owned by Comcast Corp. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks.